Black "flicker" at start of video

[Guest]

Hello --

I have created an mpg1 video that begins with white frames that then
dissolve into my video clips. When inserted onto a slide, the video frame is
white, which is great, as my slide background is white.

However, when the video begins (set to play automatically when I go to this
slide), there is a brief flicker of black -- black that is not in the
original video file -- and then the video returns to white, and plays
normally.

Is there any way that I can get rid of this flicker to black? I am using
PowerPoint 2002 SP3 and Office XP. Thanks!

 

[Troy @ TLC Creative]

This is a common problem with video in PPT. Because you have a solid
background - try this. Place a box over the video (in this case a white box
to match your background). A movie always plays on top, so the initial
flicker should occur under the white box and when the video is truely
playing (after the flicker) it will jump to the top.

Let us know if this is a workable solution.

--
Best Regards,
Troy Chollar
TLC Creative Services, Inc.
troy at tlc creative dot com
www dot tlccreative dot com
==================================
A Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
==================================

 

[Guest]

Thanks very much for the reply. Unfortunately, even with the black box, the
video does come to the front and display the same black flicker.

 

[Mike M.]

Did you try a "white" box as Troy suggested?

Thanks very much for the reply. Unfortunately, even with the black box, the
video does come to the front and display the same black flicker.

 

[Guest]

Yes...sorry, I had "black" on the brain! I did indeed try a white box and,
again, it went away, the black flicker appeared, and then the video started.

 

[Mike M.]

If you play this in Windows Media Player outside of PowerPoint do you see
any flicker?

 

[Austin Myers]

Unfortunately there is little you can do about it as it is the nature of the
media player. When you start the playback of a media file the player must
read the media file header to determine which codec is required, load the
codec into memory, cache the beginning of the media file to decode it, and
then starts to play. This takes just a brief moment to do on most machines.

Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

 

[Guest]

Hello, and thanks for the message. The flicker does not appear in Windows
Media Player. However, the end user needs the video file to display within
PowerPoint, so will not be in a position to run a file in WMP.

 

[Mike M.]

I have run out of ideas. I have used the "hide it behind a shape" technique
for my web browser control which does a similar thing. It worked fine for
that. I have done many presentations with all kinds of videos inserted and
haven't really noticed anything other than what is in the video or some
slight hesitation/flickering as PowerPoint reads the intial parts of the
video for playing.

 

[Guest]

I thank you and everyone who replied for your time and assistance!

 

[Kathy J]

Patrick,
What about a work around instead of a solution? If you are open to it, try
this:
Move the movie off the slide. Give it a motion path animation to bring it on
the slide. Set that animation to happen with the start animation. The start
and the flicker will then happen as the movie comes in and won't be as
noticeable as when it is happening right in front of your face.

Play with this idea and let us know if it gets you close enough to live
with...

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft MVP PowerPoint and OneNote
Author of Kathy Jacobs on PowerPoint - Available now from Holy Macro! Books
Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com
I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
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